VMs: dating the VMs

["Manfred Staudinger" <manfrstaudinger@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rene wrote:

> Most of the evidence (medieval costumes) seems to point to 1420-1460, the
> Lower Rhine area, ie the border region between Germany, France, and the
> Netherlands.

If those costumes first appeared in Europe about 1420 this will give us a
"terminus post quem", a date saying the VMs was written afterwards. But
the question really is: what is the most recent costume, the most modern
feature shown?

Normally you don't write on vellum from scratch but instead you use a piece of
paper and make a copy of it on vellum. When we talk about dating the VMs then
we mean only this process of copying! The paper which was used might be older, 
how much we cannot know. 

The leaves show plenty of space but I cannot remember a single vellum ms. from
say before 1500 which was not written tightly (because of the costly material). On
those old mss. you can see thin lines for carefully planing the space available
for
the later writing. By the way, I would guess such a format-free writing on vellum
does not occur before the second half of the 16th century ie after 1550. Any
other opinions?

As some writing seems to refer to specific parts of the drawings, for example
to the "roots" or the "flowers", the drawings may represent not so much natural 
things as specific plants &c. but rather illustrations for intellectual concepts.
Dating
the VMs would give us a "terminus ante quem" for those concepts.

Regards, Manfred

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